92 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



dition for mammoth remains, I was permitted not only to 

 become acquainted with this newest find while still in its 

 place of deposit and to take part in exhuming it, but also to 

 visit the zoological museum of St. Petersburg, which is so 

 rich in mammoth remains, for the purpose of studying the ani- 

 mal more in detail." (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1906, pp. 321, 

 322.) The example is but one of many, which serve to empha- 

 size not merely the inadequacy of the generality of palseonto- 

 logical restorations, but also the extreme diflficulty which the 

 palaeontologist experiences in interpreting aright the par- 

 tially effaced record of a vanished past. 



The fifth and most critical flaw in the fossil "evidence" for 

 evolution is to be found in the anomalies of the actual dis- 

 tribution of fossils in time. It is the boast of evolutionary 

 Palaeontology that it is able to enhance the cogency of the 

 argument from mere structural resemblance by showing, that, 

 of two structurally allied forms, one is more ancient than the 

 other, and may, therefore, be presumed to be ancestral to the 

 later form. Antecedence in time is the sine qua non qualifica- 

 tion of a credible ancestor, and, unless the relative priority of 

 certain organic types, as compared with others, can be estab- 

 lished with absolute certainty, the whole palaeontological ar- 

 gument collapses, and the boast of evolutionary geology be- 

 comes an empty vaunt. 



Whenever the appearance of a so-called annectant type is 

 antedated by that of the two forms, which it is supposed to 

 connect, this fact is, naturally, a deathblow to its claim of 

 being the "common ancestor," even though, from a purely mor- 

 phological standpoint, it should possess all the requisites of 

 an ancestral type. Commenting upon the statement that a 

 certain genus "is a truly annectant form uniting the Melo- 

 crinidae and the Platycrinidae," Bather takes exception as 

 follows: "The genus in question appeared, so far as we know, 

 rather late in the Lower Carboniferous, whereas both Platy- 

 crinidae and Melocrinidae were already established in Middle 

 Silurian time. How is it possible that the far later form 



